The 23rd COLCOA French Film Festival starts Monday, Sept. 23 and, well, it’s a little different this year.

For one thing, L.A.’s annual survey of movies and television shows from and co-produced by France is happening later this year than in its usual, April timeslot. That is due to an impressive upgrade of the main theater at the Directors Guild of America building on Sunset Boulevard, the festival’s home venue.

“I think COLCOA will be the first event to introduce the new theater, so we did not have a choice but to postpone the festival to fall,” COLCOA executive producer and artistic director Francois Truffart explains. “This was the main reason, but we took advantage of it. What’s happened now is we were able to get films very, very fresh from Cannes and from the Venice Film Festival. That’s very important because we have some U.S. and North American premieres of some of their major films.”

Indeed, this year’s program bears an appropriately autumnal, bumper crop of acclaimed features, many of them making their U.S. or North American debuts at COLCOA.

Monday’s opening night gala (which also screens Friday) is Ladj Ly’s “Les Miserables,” the Cannes Jury Prize winner that brings elements of Victor Hugo’s much-filmed novel to the director’s own contemporary, multi-ethnic and volatile suburb of Paris. On Friday, this iteration of “Les Mis” was selected as France’s official entry for the next Best International Feature Academy Award.

The closing film Saturday night is another Cannes premiere, Nicolas Bedos’ “La Belle Epoque,” a time-traveling romantic comedy starring such French stalwarts as Daniel Auteuil, Fanny Ardant and Guillaume Canet.

Additional highlights include the North American premiere of the Belgian Dardenne brothers’ “Young Ahmed,” which won them Cannes directing trophy this year; political thriller maestro Costa-Gavras’ “Adults in the Room,” about the recent financial meltdown in his native Greece, which just world-premiered at the Venice Film Festival; the turn-of-the-century, theater-set dramedy “Cyrano My Love” with Olivier Gourmet and Mathilde Seignier; the animated, Cannes Critics Week Grand Prize-winner “I Lost My Body”; Jeanne Herry’s multiple Cesar Award-nominated adoption drama “In Safe Hands”; and Mounia Meddour’s semi-autobiographical “Papicha,” a fashionistas vs. Islamic hardliners confrontation that is Algeria’s entry for the foreign film Academy Award.

A scene from “Papicha.” Photo provided by COLCOA

“In the 15 years that I’ve been programming COLCOA, this is probably the highest-profile one in terms of quality of films,” Truffart says. “They are very moving, people are going to cry and laugh, and there are some amazing performances in the films.”

They’re going to sound and look amazing too, at least the ones playing in the DGA’s new main auditorium, which during COLCOA is referred to as the Renoir Theatre.

A committee of directors that included Jon Favreau (Disney’s latest “Lion King”), Michael Mann (“Heat”), Christopher Nolan (Dark Knight Trilogy), Betty Thomas (“The Brady Bunch Movie”) and others collaborated with design firm Gensler on the 600-seat, state-of-the-tech space, which boasts a custom-built Dolby Vision laser projection system and Atmos immersive sound that will shoot through more than 70 new, Meyer speakers. There are also upgraded 35mm and 70mm, analog film projection capabilities and a new, 50-foot screen.

“The new DGA Theater is unique in that it was created by filmmakers for a filmmaker-designed, embracing and impactful experience,” Mann, a member of both the DGA and the Franco-American Cultural fund that backs COLCOA, says in a DGA press release. “From customizing cutting-edge projection, to auditioning full speaker systems in the space before selecting the Meyers, to determining the interior materials, every decision was made by directors. The new DGA Theater is designed to be the most optimum experience possible.”

“I had a chance to visit the theater when they were in the process of testing everything,” COLCOA’s Truffart reports. “It’s very spectacular, it’s like a ride. There are a lot of speakers, I think more than 70 in this theater. The sounds move everywhere in the theater, which has the same structure {as before] but a different color.”

Along with the obvious improvements to COLCOA this year, one thing that may not initially look like one is a shorter, smaller festival than in recent editions. Down from more than 80 films last year, there are around 59 movies and television series this year, according to Truffart. That’s partly due to the new date, but the director says they were planning on reducing the number of films anyway in order to give each one more and better promotion. For technical reasons, the 2019 fest ends a day earlier, on Saturday, than previous weeklong runs. Sunday programming will likely be reinstated next year.

As for a return to the traditional spring period for COLCOA, several factors, like how well the fall schedule does this year, will influence whether that may happen in the future.

“The decision will be made by the COLCOA board,” Truffart explains. “It is very difficult for me to give you an answer, unfortunately.

“The only answer I can give you is that if we go back to April next year, that will be in six months,” he continues. “That’s probably very damaging for the program, because it’s a long process and, also, as you will see this year we have a lot of upcoming films that will be released in France afterward and through the end of the year. We also have films with American distributors that will be released next year. If we go back to April, we’ll just have two months of French films in February and March to choose from. It won’t work; it’s not impossible, but it’s very challenging. And it’s not good to change the date all the time.”

The dates to celebrate all that French cinema and TV have to offer now are Sept. 23 through 28 at the Directors Guild of America, 7920 Sunset Blvd., L.A. For the full program, tickets and other information, go to colcoa.org.

Bob Strauss has been covering film at the L.A. Daily News since 1989. He wouldn't say the movies have gotten worse in that time, but they do keep getting harder to love. Fortunately, he still loves them.

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